Since Scribunto for MediaWiki 1.25, your PHP server also needs to have pcntl enabled (only works with Unix/Linux platforms) if you want to use "LuaStandAlone" (i.e. running in a separate child process). Under Windows, Scribunto will run Lua only as "LuaSandbox" (within the same PHP thread as the thread used by MediaWiki to run this Scribunto extension, but within the sandboxing PHP environment configured by Scribunto).

Additional Lua binary distributions, which may be needed for your web server if its operating system is not in the list above, can be obtained from http://luabinaries.sourceforge.net/ or from your Linux distribution. Only binary files for Lua 5.1.x are supported. Once you've installed the appropriate binary file on your web server, configure the location of the file with:

# where lua is the name of the binary file# e.g. sourceforge LuaBinaries 5.1.5 - Release 2 name the binary file lua5.1$wgScribuntoEngineConf['luastandalone']['luaPath']='/path/to/binaries/lua5.1';

Note that you should not add the above line unless you've confirmed that Scribunto's built-in binaries don't work for you.

YDone - Navigate to Special:Version on your wiki to verify that the extension is successfully installed.

To users running MediaWiki 1.29 or earlier:

The instructions above describe the new way of installing this extension using wfLoadExtension() If you need to install this extension on these earlier versions (MediaWiki 1.29 and earlier), instead of wfLoadExtension( 'Scribunto' );, you need to use:

We have developed a PHP extension written in C called LuaSandbox. It can be used as an alternative to the standalone binary, and will provide improved performance. See LuaSandbox for details and installation instructions.

If you initially installed the extension to use the Lua standalone binary, be sure to update LocalSettings.php with $wgScribuntoDefaultEngine = 'luasandbox';.

An associative array for engine configuration. Keys are the valid values for $wgScribuntoDefaultEngine, and values are associative arrays of configuration data. Each configuration array must contain a 'class' key naming the ScribuntoEngineBase subclass to use.

In Lua, the set of all global variables and functions is called an environment.

Each {{#invoke:}} call runs in a separate environment. Variables defined in one {{#invoke:}} will not be available from another. This restriction was necessary to maintain flexibility in the wikitext parser implementation.

When using the LuaStandalone engine (this is the default), errors along the lines of "Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 1" may be generated if the standalone Lua interpreter cannot be executed or runs into various runtime errors. To obtain more information, assign a file path to $wgScribuntoEngineConf['luastandalone']['errorFile']. The interpreter's error output will be logged to the specified file, which should prove more helpful in tracking down the issue. The information in the debug log includes debugging information, which is why there is so much of it. You should be able to ignore any line beginning with "TX" or "RX".

When using the LuaStandalone engine (this is the default), status 2 suggests memory allocation errors, probably caused by settings that allocate inadequate memory space for PHP or lua, or both. Assigning a file path to $wgScribuntoEngineConf['luastandalone']['errorFile'] and examining that output can be valuable in diagnosing memory allocation errors.

Increase PHP allocation in your PHP configuration; add the line memory_limit = 200M. This allocation of 200MB is often sufficient (as of MediaWiki 1.24) but can be increased as required. Set Scribunto's memory allocation in LocalSettings.php as a line:

When using the LuaStandalone engine (this is the default), status 24 suggests CPU time limit errors, although those should be generating a "The time allocated for running scripts has expired" message instead. It would be useful to file a task in Phabricator and participate in determining why the XCPU signal isn't being caught.

When using the LuaStandalone engine (this is the default), errors along the lines of "Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter exited with status 126" may be generated if the standalone Lua interpreter cannot be executed. This generally arises from either of 2 causes:

The lua executable file's permissions do not include Execute. Set permissions as described under #Installation.

The server does not allow execution of files from the place where the executable is installed, e.g. the filesystem is mounted with the 'noexec' flag. This often occurs with shared hosted servers. Remedies include adjusting $wgScribuntoEngineConf['luastandalone']['luaPath'] to point to a Lua 5.1 binary installed in an executable location, or adjusting or convincing the shared host to adjust the setting preventing execution.

If the above gives you errors such as "version `GLIBC_2.11' not found", it means the version of the standard C library on your system is too old for the binaries provided with Scribunto. You should upgrade your C library, or use a version of Lua 5.1 compiled for the C library you do have installed. To upgrade your C library, your best option is usually to follow your distribution's instructions for upgrading packages (or for upgrading to a new release of the distribution, if applicable).

If you copy the lua binaries from Scribunto master (or from gerrit:77905), that should suffice, if you can't or don't want to upgrade your C library. The distributed binaries were recently recompiled against an older version of glibc, so the minimum is now 2.3 rather than 2.11.

If you are getting errors such these when attempting to use modules imported from WMF wikis, most likely your version of Scribunto is out of date. Upgrade if possible; for advanced users, you might also try to identify the needed newer commits and cherry-pick them into your local installation.

preg_replace_callback(): Compilation failed: unknown property name after \P or \p at offset 7[edit]

preg_replace_callback(): Compilation failed: unknown property name after \P or \p at offset 7

this usually indicates an incompatible version of PCRE; you’ll need to update to >= 8.10

If you copy templates from Wikipedia and then get big red "Lua error: x" messages where the Scribunto invocation (e.g. the template that uses {{#invoke:}}) should be, that probably means that you didn't import everything you needed. Make sure that you tick the "Include templates" box at w:Special:Export when you export.

When importing pages from another wiki, it is also possible for templates or modules in the imported data to overwrite existing templates or modules with the same title, which may break existing pages, templates, and modules that depend on the overwritten versions.

wikidata:Help:Lua - there may be specific notes for using Lua modules on Wikidata, including additional Lua extensions installed (e.g. for local support of internationalization and for database queries)

commons:Commons:Lua - there may be specific notes for using Lua modules on Wikimedia Commons, including additional Lua extensions installed (e.g. for local support of internationalization and for parsing or playing medias). Some general purpose modules may be reused in other wikis in various languages (except specific tunings for policies, namespaces or project/maintenance pages with dedicated names). If possible, modules that could be widely reused across wikis should be tested and internationalized on Commons.

wikipedia:Help:Lua - there may be specific notes for using Lua modules on (English) Wikipedia, including additional Lua extensions installed (including for integrating Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons contents, generating complex infoboxes and navigation boxes, or to facilitate the general administration/maintenance of the wiki contents under applicable policies). Some other localized Wikipedia editions (or other projects such Wiktionnary, Wikisource or Wikinews) may also have their own needs and Lua modules.

↑i.e. proc_open is not within the array of disable_functions in your server's "php.ini" file.

This extension is being used on one or more Wikimedia projects. This probably means that the extension is stable and works well enough to be used by such high-traffic websites. Look for this extension's name in Wikimedia's CommonSettings.php and InitialiseSettings.php configuration files to see where it's installed. A full list of the extensions installed on a particular wiki can be seen on the wiki's Special:Version page.